Sam Button, Head of Growth, Roar Media
Digital Transformation has a variety of perspectives and approaches. The expectation of those two words are focused on authenticity, precision, speed, transparency, accountability and the clarity of accountability from the data. People drive change and the focus should be on mindset, perspective and how to become more authentic & transparent.
Internal & customer facing transformation are intrinsically linked, lasting transformations focus on the adoption of a model which supports this both through technology and the education & upskilling of your workforce. Transformations should be well thought out and theorized, designing the optimal way to evolve requires research and understanding of the market, technology, your customers, customer data, as well as the optimal methodology to achieve short & long-term measurable goals. This article focusses on the model’s of evolution, considerations & methodologies, in order to inspire the best design for change management.
Evaluation & Methodology
Dr. Henna Karna theorized an approach to the mentality of companies on an Axes (Digital Axes 2016, below). The x-axis shows “How we are thinking about ourselves and the things we do”, the y-axis portrays ‘How we speak & engage with our customers in regards to products and solutions.
Inside-Out: Focuses on internal optimization, the product is built for the consumer
Outside-In: Build products on customer indication
Bi-Directional: Continuous partnership between customer & company. This has a frequency element with customer feedback on a regular basis. A continuous partnership between the customer & company.
Uni-Directional: Company engages with customer periodically during updates, new launches etc.
The goal for most digital transformations should be a combination of Outside-in & Bi-Directional (in the upper right corner of the diagram), this is outside-Two Way. However, if you were looking at this from the viewpoint of another department, other methods would be better suited (For example, HR/Employee Tools would be best evaluated & progressed upon using Inside-Two Way, Performance management tools could be best assessed & improved using a Inside-One Way approach and looking at performance with tools for data capture would be best done by an Outside-One Way approach).
Companies should look to have a predominantly outside-in perspective when evaluating & strategizing digital innovation on a company-wide scale, the goal should be Outside-Two Way which is bidirectional & a continuous partnership with co-created products
Business Model Evolution
We can categorize the evolution of your business model in a number of areas. Digital enhancements include product augmentation & a continued evolution towards digital & a companywide digital mindset. New digital business can be created from the expansion of digital products and by increasing the frequency & speed of iterations for these products with rapid product evaluation & continuous improvement.
You can use digital to really disrupt the business model by creating new divisions in order to support & connect various business units within. For example a digital innovation hub will work alongside different teams within the business and will be able to increase collaboration across these.
Internal optimization & external expansion should go hand in hand, with improvements being linear and significant growth being seen in correlation to internal optimization due to the release of new products causing an increase in customers and increased purchase volume from loyal customers.
The keys to internal innovation are seamless collaboration including real-time feedback, in addition to performance management creating operation visibility and data-driven decision making. It is important to get the strategy internally communicated to have all employees drive for the same goals in customer experience & growth. External expansion can be achieved through the redesign of customer touch points, with a channel portfolio view being supported by technology enabling self-service engagement, applications & products. Captive conversion is achieved through predictive marketing & digitally enhanced selling which is all enabled through the correct capture & use of data.
Digital capabilities enhance services & support the innovation of each other with unified data & processes increasing analytic ability and integrating business & IT.
Create a unique value proposition for continuous improvement, transparency & alignment of all employees to a common goal. We are looking to have both qualitative & quantitative lenses around the way we see our current business model and how we can look to improve,
for example you can consider:
Self-Service – Intuitive interface for actuaries to complete key manipulations in an efficient & effective manner.
Benchmarking – Benchmarking of key portfolio parameters against aggregate industry performance.
Analytics – Cross-business and cross-data analytics to drive greater insights for actuaries of our technology.
Reporting – Automated CCAR & reporting mechanism to minimize costs and need for manual intervention.
Co-Creation – Co-Creation of new products that can be replicated for future needs.
ROI Tracking – Transparent measurement of ROI to drive vendor management, data & technology decisions.
Programmable APIs – Exposure to APIs using platform architecture (for crowd souring, etc).
Recommendations – Suggestions of new products or additional feature use based on analysis of user behaviour while in the ecosystem.
Personalized – Capability to rapidly develop and host dashboards for specific needs for individual users.
New Business Models – Rapid data & analytics modelling facility for iterative design & development of new models.
There is a maturity curve which can be used for the use and interpretation of data. To be a digitally transformed organisation you have to be heavily driven by your data, both subjectively in how you can understand qualitative perspective and verifying, validating or negating qualitative things we are thinking with data.
We want our data collection & storing to have a microservices approach so everything is highly tailorable, so getting information & analytical reports can be easy for all strategic decision makers. The data can then be pushed back into the social listening side and set into a big data hub. This cycle ensures data-driven decision making that is aligned to the wants & needs of your customers.
Expect the Unexpected
Looking at Covid-19, digitally transformed companies use data to make sure customers get what they need quicker as they think with an agile, customer centric mindset, aiming fulfil customer requirements immediately even in times of change.
Taking advantage of an unexplained opportunity with the correct discipline & experience, leads to disruptive innovation. You can plan & test but your intent should always be around doing what you think is necessary for the customer, in a way that is more than what you have done before. This is proactive and predicting what consumers will need.
Executed through thoughtful intent and collaboration, disruptive innovations can occur as an outcome of increasing internal strategic priorities which embed digital capabilities, power of predictive analytics, a culture of data-drive decision analysis & balancing short-term goals with long-term aspiration.